The Paralympic sprinter looks back on his fastest T13 100m victory of 10.53 at the Tokyo Games
When you have a four-year cycle, you plan for the fourth year. Then, suddenly, came Covid and everything changed. It resulted in an injury. I’ve been practicing on the block because I don’t live far from Mary Peters Way in Belfast. But, all of a sudden, I went from getting treatment, physical therapy, support staff two or three times a week to a few months of nothing.
It was my choice to continue training. You feel like you’re going to lose by doing nothing and letting other people lead, but I ended up with a pretty bad back problem and around August 2020 I couldn’t even touch my knees. I had nerfed one of the discs.
I have had back problems in the past. I had to sort things out knowing I was nearing the end of my career and there was a bit of anxiety on that front. After a few weeks it settled down and then all of a sudden I was doing something at the gym and it came back but worse.
The same thing happened for a few weeks when I was trying to build things up, made a few changes and my back went bad again. It lasted longer and was felt
slower to lighten up.
Suddenly we were in November and I was sitting there thinking. I wasn’t sure I could even compete in the Paralympics. I got through it, but I picked up a few niggles, some Achilles problems, so I went into the spring underprepared. It had a knock-on effect that as the summer progressed, I competed as well. I was able to compete only twice.
There were new athletes at the scene. The Algerian guy who finished second with me in Tokyo (Skender Jamil Atmani) had been an athlete for years but had only just got into para sports. I had seen him run faster than I had for the past few years. He had my personal best of 10.2 a few years before that. So suddenly this athlete appeared who was a serious contender.
Jason Smith
In parasports, you can kind of take the invisible path. I was aware of Atmani for a month or two, but everyone from outside was going. “Jason Smith is going to win the gold medal.”
That was the whole background leading up to Tokyo; doubts, uncertainty, inadequate training, a new athlete who ran faster than me. But still, everyone expected me to win because they were not aware of the issues.
Stephen Maguire was again involved with me on the coaching front leading up to the games and his experience was huge and hugely influential in how we went about the process and the patience we had to go about it. If I had competed a week earlier, I would not have won. That was where we were in terms of time and we were absolutely on the money in terms of getting everything right at the right time.
At that stage you just sharpen and sharpen. But it’s really a mental battle at that point. That’s where it wins and loses. In sports, we talk about it all the time. control the controllable and influence the things you can influence. I felt that it was something that I did very well. that whole mental part. But I had to find something and be more focused than I had ever been in my career.
Steven’s biggest impact came between the sheets and the final. There were plays I knew I had to make; I had to put Jamil under pressure in the first half of the race. Stepanos said: “If you pressure him, he will make mistakes.”
I hadn’t done the job at the back of the race just because of injuries and I had to find something in the first 60 meters of my race that I hadn’t found in a few years, but I had to go for it. situation.
There were other things we talked about, even in the call room. The phrase Stefan used was “bring presence.” I am the experienced one here, I am a gold medalist. I am the person people look up to and expect to win. Those moments bring a presence when you’re in the call room that you’re ready. And that can then influence or change everyone else or their way of thinking. They knew nothing about injuries. They had no idea where I was.
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And there was that ability to mentally connect. I’m not exactly sure how I managed to do that, but in the end, that was the difference. I ran 10.53, which wasn’t the fastest I’d run in a couple of years, so to be able to win like that was a complete blow to me.
Under the pressure of the games, it felt like all those years paid off. I’ve always tried to make good choices, even early in my career, not because of where I’m at at the time. Let’s say, in terms of when I could be a few meters ahead of people, I could probably adapt. But I really felt like I was getting ready for the day when I needed something else.
And that final turned into the day that all those choices, all the things I’d sacrificed, turned into that one hundredth of a second. In hindsight, it meant I was able to leave the Paralympics at that point and leave on top. That’s something that I don’t think most athletes have the opportunity to do.
As Mark Woods said
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